Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins seemed a tad looser in a brief media session Wednesday at FedExForum than he did two weeks ago in a similar situation.

Back then, his team trailed 0-2 in a Western Conference first-round series to the Clippers, after being blown out 112-91 in Game 1 and then losing 93-91 in Game 2 on Chris Paul's late shot.

But on Wednesday with his team 1-1 after the first two games of the West semifinals at Oklahoma City, Hollins actually smiled a couple of times. That's because his team has mostly controlled the first two games on the road heading back to Saturday's Game 3 in FedExForum.

He knows the Grizzlies could easily be up 2-0 in the series, having lost Sunday's Game 1 93-91 after a late Thunder rally before rebounding for a 99-93 victory Tuesday.

Here are some of Hollins' observations from Wednesday:

On slowing down OKC's Kevin Durant, who's averaging 35.5 points, 13 rebounds and 7.5 assists in this series: "We want to (cut off Durant's supporting cast), but you still can't let him get 50. We want to make him work and take a lot of shots. We don't want to put him on the free throw line. It takes a lot of energy to be an offensive player, regardless of what people think, especially when you have the ball in your hand the majority of the time. We want to work him on that end and work him on the defensive end. We want to run and make him play the entire game,"

On any adjustments that shut down OKC's Kevin Martin, who scored just 6 points (on 2-of-11 shooting, 0-of-2 3's) in Game 2 after hitting 25 points (8-of-14 FG, 3 of 5 3's) in Game 1: "We didn't make any adjustments. We had a lot of different people guarding him. He had some wide open shots and he didn't make."

On the difference between Game 1 and Game 2: "We just played with more energy, more aggressive, attacked more. It was another anybody-could-have-won game. We were just blessed to have that win."

On Griz point guard Mike Conley having the respect of his teammates: "That's what you play for -- the respect of your teammates and the respect of your opponents. You want to make your opponents come to you after a game and say, 'You're a good player, man. It's tough competing against you.' "